Beautiful Van Hohenhiem
by BandGeek99
Summary: She knew that she wanted him to come back to her, come back so that maybe, just maybe, have a family with him again. The story of Dante and Hohenhiem, four hundred years of love. Spoilers for end of the original anime. DantexHoho, hinted TrishaxHoho. R


Damn him.

Damn him.

Damn him.

These were the only thoughts that ran through her mind.

He couldn't leave her alone. Not after what he had done, not after what he had said would work failed. Not after he had pledged eternal love to her through the holy vows of marriage. Not after they'd had a child together, a perfect baby boy. Not after they'd raised him to be a strapping young man, ready to be married. Not after the perfect life.

But the perfect life had gone wrong so fast. The boy was dead. Their William was gone. There was only one way to bring him back; by stepping into forbidden territory, the beliefs and practices of the blasphemous deserters of God, the people who claimed to be men of science. And even then, what the two of them set out to do was taboo. Yet they had gone through with it anyway. They left their religion behind and had created… created _it._ What he had called "that ruinous thing," the thing that had cost the life of its father himself.

And she was a fool. She was foolish enough to believe that he would still love her after she bonded him to another body, the body of a man less beautiful than the man he had been before, after she destroyed an entire city to save the two of them, after creating the thing that they could live on, seemingly for forever: the Philosopher's Stone. Yes, it was true; she was a foolish woman.

Dante, even centuries later, was the same. She was selfish. She wanted power, power over him, power over the world. She hungered for him, for his affections once more. She wanted him, his perfect self, exactly the way it had been over four centuries ago. She was vain and kept herself young and beautiful, all for him. She hated the woman he had found, the woman he had married, for having him. She never thought she'd become the ultimate sin herself, never once believed in a million years that she would become such a filthy, dirty woman at the bottom of it all. But she knew that she wanted him to come back to her, come back so that maybe, just maybe, she and their resurrected son could have a family with him.

And it all started with a pledge of love.

"Dante, darling, please, see to the customers."

The young girl nodded and bowed respectfully. "Yes, Father." She turned away from the older man, who sat at his desk, poring over books filled with numbers and equations and silently walked down the hall to the small apothecary her family ran.

It was a small shop, really, filled with different herbs and jars meant to relieve ailments and aches of all kinds and of all intensities. A drop of this in a cup of tea would relieve a headache, and a pinch of that on top of your food would beat off a cold. Dante didn't believe that half of these so-called cures worked, but she never said anything about it.

The only man in the shop was a tall blonde, with mysterious golden eyes. He was holding up a bottle of Pirelli's Miracle Elixir, a mixture said to cure baldness.

_Curious… I wonder why he wants such a thing. Surely he is not going bald?_ Dante thought, tugging on a curl that had escaped her hair ribbons and hung loosely by her face. "May I help you find something, sir?" she asked politely.

The man looked up and smiled graciously. "Ah, no, miss. I've just come by too look for some medicinal cure for my father's baldness."

"Your father sent you for a baldness cure? I know a very good one, it seems to work wonders," Dante said, slowly and apprehensively approaching him. _Heavens, he's handsome,_ she mused.

"Ah, no. My father was not the one that sent me; twas my good mother who told me to come. Which elixir is best?" the man smiled graciously and Dante realized he was maybe seventeen, a mere three years older than her.

"This is it. Rub it on your father's head once a day and he shall soon have enough hair for four men," Dante said, picking up a small jar and holding it out to him. "It's a fair price less than that." At this she nodded to the small bottle in his hand.

He grinned even wider. "I thank you kindly. How much do I owe?"

"Tis only thruppence, sir," she said, exchanging three coins for the bottle of hair-loss reversal. "Thank you."

"No, I thank you." He pocketed the jar before looking at her with wide, curious eyes and asking, "May I ask your name?"

_He wishes to know my name! Me! My name! Oh, what fortune!_ "I am Dante, sir."

"My name is Van Hohenhiem. I do hope we shall see each other again," he said, taking her hand and kissing it gently. "Miss Dante." And with that he nodded and left the apothecary shop, leaving her stunned and love struck.

"Hohenhiem," she murmured to herself. "My beautiful Van Hohenhiem."

* * *

_Introduction and Part I. I believe that Dante and Hohenhiem's story is a beautiful and sad one and it needs to be told, because in the first anime, it is, essentially, what started the whole upheaval of the country._

_This will be written as I am inspired, so it might be a fast story to be finished, and it might be a long time until I'm done. However, I am planning on this to be short and sweet and to the point, essentially._

_Please give me your honest responses. I know the first bit, the prologue, is a bit weirdly phrased and written, but it was the best I could do. I'm a little bit stressed out and tired, this was something I came up with on a whim._

_Thank you for reading, I promise there will be more soon!_

_----BandGeek99---_


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